The Lies She Tells Herself
by figured-out
Summary: Sydney post 4x22


**The Lies She Tells Herself  
**_Sydney, Sydney/Vaughn  
Post 4.22 – Before the Flood_

**  
He'll always love her.**

Unless you count the way it started.

_It's no accident that I was the one you came to when you walked in the CIA with your story about SD-6._

It wasn't meant to be. It wasn't set in the stars. It wasn't even a coincidence.

He asked to be her handler, because of reasons she didn't quite understand yet, and then he was pulled, and she demanded his return.

He listened to her not because she fascinated him, but because he needed the details. He was there for her not because of the need to comfort her, but because he needed to gain her trust. He hugged and kissed her not because he cared for her, but because he needed to still be close to her, when professionally he had no reason to.

He never loved her.

**He'll never betray her.**

Unless you think of the truth.

_That's why I need to tell you something. Just so there's no secrets between us._

The truth he blurted out before the accident was everything she didn't, ever, want to hear, and everything she needed to know, badly.

That information crushed her. Up until that moment, she thought traitors only existed in her family – her mother, her aunt, her other aunt, her sister's father (who, in some twisted, sick way, was, somehow, a part of the family) – but she never thought the biggest betrayal of them all would come from him.

Up until that moment she believed in happy endings. Up until that moment she believed in fairytales and in her own special prince.

And then she realized every day he was betraying her all over again.

**He's the only person she can trust.**

Unless you count who he really is.

_Well, for starters, my name isn't Michael Vaughn._

For four years (-six, if you think in the general sense-) he was the one person she could tell everything to.

First, he was her handler, and she could tell him everything SD-6 related and that was something she could never do before.

Second, he was her friend, and she could tell him non-work related stuff, about her personal life, her feelings, her thoughts. He knew both sides of her. There wasn't anyone like him before.

Then, he became her significant other, and when that happened, there was nothing about her that he didn't know. She trusted him with everything she had inside of her.

He never should have known anything. He was, by far, the person she could trust least in the world.

**He'll never leave her.**

Unless you factor his death in.

At the beginning he wasn't even that important to her. She only wanted him as her handler because the other option made her want to slash her throat.

After a while, she couldn't imagine missions without talking to him before, or after, or during, his voice soft and relaxing in her ear.

Then it happened that she couldn't go through the day without talking him. So she stopped over at the rotunda every so often, or called to check in, or check up, or just to say hi.

Time passed, and she couldn't sleep if he didn't hug her, didn't want to wake up if she didn't fell his presence next to her.

Then she had no choice, because Lauren happened, and when she had it again she didn't let herself get too attached.

And then Michael Vaughn was dead. And she'll never see again.

**He'll marry her.**

Unless you take a look at her finger.

Ringless.

He gave her a ring once, but she'll never know why he did that.

She thought they were going to get married, quit the CIA (no reason to stay in anymore, really), have 8 kids and move out of LA to a quiet, small town, in which their kids would have close friends from birth through high school and even longer. She never had that.

She used to fantasize a lot. White dresses and big cakes and different guests and seating arrangements and songs and honeymoon locations.

She used to dream the impossible.

She'll never get married.

**He's the only person who knows her inside out.**

But he doesn't know about the new feeling she's been having.

It's deep and dark and heavy on her heart. It's something she wasn't quite ready for, yet knew would come.

It's hate.

It's a feeling she's felt before, but never towards someone like him. Never towards someone she considered herself 'in love with'.

It's different. It's new. It's weird.

She likes to swim in it.

She hates him.

And he doesn't know her at all.


End file.
